US upbeat on Vietnam coffee crop, but cautious on stocks

US officials downplayed the threat to Vietnam’s coffee harvest this year from dry weather, but were cautious on ideas of a surge in stocks, despite a fall in exports underlined separately on Tuesday by official data.

Many commentators have raised concerns for coffee output in Vietnam, the top producer of robusta beans, this year with Olam earlier this month foreseeing lower production in some areas this year, and veteran analyst Judith Ganes-Chase cautioning that “vegetative growth [is] showing extreme stress over the coffee belt.”

Overnight, Mark Nucera, an investment advisor to several billionaires, cautioned of the potential for a sharp drop in Vietnamese coffee yields this year “due to a terrible drought” in the March-May period.